(please note that Chapter Four
is
still-in-progress with ideas still in rough form &
that references are to be added.)
Chapter Four: Impact Of Gender & Role Reversals
Impact Of Gender
Gender is important to consider not only because it is
highly present as a factor in the marriage-of-opposites, but also because
gender comparisons/contrasts reveal so much about the "very nature"
of self-organization itself. In this instance we become like the anthropologist
who compares and contrasts two cultures with the intention to learn something
elemental about humankind itself. First, we begin with how the two styles are
generally patterned by gender. Second, we bring in the contrast of role-reversal
relationships.
The marriage-of-opposites is highly correlated with gender; gender is a
powerful determining factor of which style a person is likely to have… but not
exclusively. In my twenty-five years of experience approximately eighty percent
of the marriages I have seen exhibited a pattern whereby the woman is
core-styled and the man is outer-styled. The other twenty percent of marriages
were characterized by role reversal situations wherein the man is core-styled
and the woman outer-styled.
Most commonly, women are core-styled; that is, they exhibit some variation on the core-style. Generally, it is the woman in marital therapy that is in active pain/suffering/despair over missing intimacy and missing core-to-core contact. More often than not it is the woman in the marriage who is protesting the current situation and who also tends to have a maximizing and escalating response to the marital interactions. It is also the woman who generally complains of feeling "abandoned," "taken for granted," "not seen," and "not related to." It is the woman who most often talks about feeling the center of the marriage to be "empty," of their partner as "not there," of living in a relationship where they feel emotionally very alone.
Likewise, men tend to be outer-styled. In contrast to their multitasking wives, men tend to be single minded, focused on one activity at a time during which they tend to be emotionally unavailable. Commonly, they are tuned-in to states of "doing" and not states of "being." When confronted on their lack of emotional participation, outer-styled men often talk about being "unable to please their wives," that "what they do is never enough," that they are "not appreciated for what they do do," and sometimes add, "just tell me what to do and I will do it." Notice in all of these responses there is a persistent recasting of "the issues of being" into the language and framework of "doing." This is what outer-styled men do over and over, and this is their dysfunction in the marriage-of-opposites. What these men cannot do is to comprehend that what is needed from them in their relationship is not yet another "external performance to please or impress," but rather a fateful going inward to also claim that which is theirs' inside; to open to vulnerability, emotional longing, and an inner sense of young need and to take responsibility for this area of life to be expressed in their personal life. Note that these qualities of core-self are present to varying degrees in all men; the hard part for so many is to not only experience them but to "claim and activate" around them, to make them part of ongoing identity.
Why this gender difference? The answer to this question is long and complicated and only partially known. For our purposes here it is enough to say that there are highly intermingled biological and cultural elements at play. The following table is summary list of biological and familial/cultural factors that tend to "push/pull" girls/women and boys/men into these two different styles (see Table 2).
Table 2
Biological and Familial-Cultural Contributions to Primary Gender
"Push/Pull" Towards Two Types
Females
______________________ Males
Estrogen………………………………………………..………………Testosterone
Higher Body Fat Ratio…………….…………………..……....Higher Muscle Ratio
Neural Pathways Support Multitasking....Neural Pathways Support Single Tasking
Variability Of
Hormonal Cycle……….……Relative Constancy Of Hormonal Cycle Reinforces
Sense.................................................................Reinforces
Constancy Of
Of Inner
Core.............................................................................Outside
Mastery Self
Pregnancy, Birthing
&…………........…………………………..Fathering Activates
Postnatal Infant
Care................................................................Protective
Feelings &
Activate Nested-Self
&...............................................................Outer-Self
Vigilance
Vulnerability With Need For Outside Protection
Mother-Child
Separation…………..….…………………Mother-Child Separation
In Girls Is Accompanied.......................................In Boys Is
Accompanied By Need
By Identification With Mother..............................To Find And Identify
With Father
Girls Are Typically….…………………….………….….Boys Are Typically More
More Social, Relational...................................Aggressive &
Focused On Mastery
&
Verbal.............................................................................................Skills
& Things
Typically Girls
Are Rewarded For……..…..….Typically Boys Are Rewarded For
Dependence/Attachment
&..............................................Independence/Mastery &
Discouraged
For.............................................................................
Discouraged For
Independence/Mastery....................................................Dependence/Attachement
The above listing of male-female differences suggests the following conclusions: To begin with, "female being" is inherently more "permeable" and much less "walled-off" than "male being." The fact that female brains are inherently more multitasking than male brains, that female musculature is "lower boundaried" than male musculature, that women carry the fetus/give birth and nurse/attach in a symbiotic fashion with the infant, that girls are far more relational/social/verbal than boys, that girls do not need to separate in order to establish gender identity as do boys (boys have to separate from mother in order to establish gender identity with father), that girls are more rewarded for dependence/attachment than boys; the confluence of all of these largely physiological factors powerfully funnel women into self-experience that is highly permeable in comparison to men. The end result is that the outer-styled option of "pushing-away/walling-off core-self" is significantly less available to women than to men. Likewise, core-self and the experience of vulnerability will tend to have a "louder signal quality" for women than men.
Considered from a life-cycle perspective, women are born as infants within the nest. As they mature into older children they do so with less need to separate than do boys. As they mature further, women then return to the nest, this time as mothers to the next generation of infants and children. Though no longer true today, throughout most of human history as women move past child-bearing age they would generally move into the various roles provided elder females and largely devote themselves to guiding the younger women first entering the nesting/pregnancy/birthing process. In neolithic times the whole female life-cycle orbited around the world of the nest. This is the evolutionary pattern that has shaped female physiology for millennia. Though no longer as required by modern life circumstances, this underlying physiology is still present and leaves women with a far more ready activation towards nested experience than is typically found in men.
Female physiology is far more likely to "activate" in the whole area of "nested experience." Pregnancy, giving birth, suckling, and caretaking infants and young children are all experiences likely to "activate core-self" to high levels of intensity. Typically, men are far less likely to experience the intense "lighting-up" of the "instinctual attachment process" that women experience with infants and children in the first years of life.
Because women experience so much "intermixing" between self and other, between their needs and care-taking the needs of others, the process of psychological differentiation and individuation is inherently challenged and problematic for women. Just as depthful emotional contact is inherently problematic in outer-styled men, loss of individual sense of self is a susceptibility among many core-styled women.
Turning to "male being" we find physiologies that are inherently more bounded, focused out-in-the-world, and goal-oriented than in typical female experience. The fact that men have a larger ratio of striated muscle (muscle that facilitates "doing"), that their brains are more wired for single-minded focus, that their hormonal states are less variable and interruptive of focused activity, that they do not have the profound bodily/hormonal experience of the pregnancy/birthing/nursing/attaching that is common for women, that they generally have higher levels of aggressivity to support competitive behaviors and attitudes, that they do not have in their boyhood the same level of moderating relationalness, empathy and rapport as do girls, and that they are supported as children in independence/mastery behavior and discouraged in dependency; all of these factors confluence to channel males into a bounded/contained/focused experience of the world wherein walling-off of core-self in favor of focus on outer-self is highly likely.
Role Reversals
It is my experience that about one-in-five relationships have the qualities of role-reversal wherein the man is core-styled and the woman is outer-styled. Before considering the characteristic dynamics of these relationships, we need to briefly consider how these less common styles look, first in men and then in women.
Among men who are core-styled two patterns are common. Often in men the core-style is buried beneath an outer masculine style; this is the situation where the outer-style serves largely as a defense against the inner core style. Among other men the core-style is highly evident and largely resembles the primary pattern seen more often in women.
The Defended Core-Style In Men
This is the male version of the "core-self defended and hidden by
outer-self" described in the earlier chapter. These are men who have quite
significant core-self activation that presses for expression but where the
young need is not directly experienced but is instead displaced ("bumped
upstairs") into outer-self concerns. Commonly these are men who are
irruptive/angry over feeling not given support and recognition for the
accomplishments of their ego or outer-self. Probing the situation with such men
generally reveals histories replete with childhood irruptivity and young
wounded experience but also a grim determination to assert ego and succeed in
the outer world. The end result is that they grow up with a deep inner sense of
having been deprived/rejected/broken which they have learned to push away and
distance by focusing on their emergent outer-self capabilities/male ego. What
distinguishes these men from the more typical outer-style picture is the large
amounts of young-self need/irruptivity/insecurity that continues to demand
expression from deep inside; these inner urgent feelings are experienced as
aspects of the outer-self when in fact they usher from the inner-self. In
essence, these are men who have highly activated core selves that they are
nevertheless cut-off from.
The Primary Core-Style In Men
These are men who live in direct contact with their core self, their need
of others, and the awareness of vulnerability. In this respect their experience
is closer to that of the typical woman. The situation for these men is often
complex; they experience not only the core vulnerability that most men wall-off
from but also the sense that their masculine outer-self is somehow broken or
failed in that this outer-self cannot effectively contain/silence their inner
need as it commonly does for men. The histories of such men usually contain
serious instances of early maternal rupture, whether singular/traumatic and/or
prolonged/ongoing. In essence, these are situations of lost or conflicted
maternal union wherein a young boy's needs for close supportive attachment are
disrupted before their time. For some of these men the difficulty rests with
insufficient nesting itself, for others with ineffective/undermining assistance
in the process of separating from the nest. In both situations, for a complex
set of reasons, such men, as boys, are not able to make effective use of external
male role behavior to successfully minimize their needs for external emotional
support/contact. They are left with a vivid awareness of needing the support of
others' rapport and a general apprehension that such support is not
forthcoming.
The Outer-Style In Women
A minority of women function from the outer-self. Two subtypes stand out;
as with the core-style in men, one has a feminine form, the other a masculine
form.
The Masculine Outer-Style in Women
A certain number of women live from an outer-style more typically found in
men. These are women who strongly prefer independence and reject dependence,
who naturally focus upon career accomplishment, who are comfortable with
competition and the struggle to win, who tend to automatically push away feelings
of incapacity or helplessness in themselves, and who tend to react with covert
criticalness and judging or contempt towards vulnerable needing in those close
to them. Women with this organization tend to go after what they want, often
successfully. They generally have ready access to assertiveness in the service
of goals they have embraced, but not vulnerability, dependence or young
needfulness towards others.
Such women do not necessarily exhibit masculine gender traits, although this is sometimes the case. Martha Stewart is possible public example of a woman with this outer masculine style whose gender persona in the world is nevertheless feminine.
The Feminine Outer-Style in Women
These are women who, as girls, profoundly concluded that the maternal/caretaking
world was not going to "be present" and responsive to their core
emotional needs for empathy, attunement and support. Over time they have
learned to withdraw their expression of core need, to hide it from the outer
world, to hide it from themselves. Rather than align with independence as in
the situation of women with masculine outer-style, they have learned to become
facilitators of others, to put themselves at the disposal of others' needs. In
essence, they have a one-sided alignment with traditional female roles and
values. They tend towards compliance, emotional receptivity, and co-dependent
facilitation of others, with a sense of personal self left vague on the outside
and deeply hidden away inside. While core-self is largely not available for
their own use, a certain "intuitive knowing" of core-self is
available to them in their understanding and facilitation of others. Seen from
the outside, women with this style can appear very connected and plumbed into
core self; this perception follows from their evident warmth and sensitivity to
others. Depthful observation and inquiry, however, often reveals significant
inner disconnection and self-rejecting attitudes towards their own core-self
experience.
Configurations of Role-Reversal Marriages
Certainly many different configurations are possible.
Defended Core-Styled Man With Feminine Outer-Styled Woman
Among role-reversal relationships, this is a common configuration. <
note the commonness of defended core styled man with core styled woman… the
defended core styled man mimics the outer styled man.>
Primary (Feminine) Core-Styled Man With The
Masculine Outer-Styled Woman (or Primary Outer-Styled Woman)
These relationships are not commonly seen, most
probably because the Masculine Outer-Styled Woman may tend to have contemptuous
attitudes towards Primary Core-Styled men because they may appear to them as
weak, needful and dependent.